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NC3Rs e-newsletter - November 2016

£30k award for international 3Rs prize - competition now open

Each year the NC3Rs awards a prize to recognise an outstanding original contribution to scientific and technological advances in the 3Rs, published in the last three years. The award consists of a £28k prize grant and £2k personal award.

The competition is now open for applications with a deadline of 4pm (GMT) on Friday 9 December 2016. For further information on how to apply and examples of past winners see www.nc3rs.org.uk/3rsprize.

The prize is sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline and the NC3Rs, and will be presented at an awards ceremony in London in March 2017.

New e-learning resource on laboratory animal euthanasia

Our new e-learning resource on “Humane Methods of Killing Laboratory Animals” is now available.

The free online resource, developed by Professor Paul Flecknell from Newcastle University, provides information on the principles of humane killing, the different methods available for mice and rats, and the legal requirements. The scenario-based training material covers EU Modules 6.1 and 6.3.

New quarterly newsletter on NC3Rs activities in Toxicology and Regulatory Sciences

We have launched this e-newsletter to keep the toxicology community updated on news from the NC3Rs Toxicology and Regulatory Sciences programme, including information on events, publications, funding opportunities, and relevant CRACK IT Challenges and Solutions.

Research funded by the NC3Rs has created a new model of prion disease, developed in the fruit fly.

Prion diseases are fatal neurodegenerative diseases that are transmissible across various mammalian species, occurring when there is a misfolding of the normal prion protein into a disease-specific form.

A team from the University of Cambridge, led by Dr Raymond Bujdoso, has shown that the fly model has the potential to be developed into a fast, low-cost diagnostic test for prion infectivity, avoiding the use of genetically modified mice or other vertebrate species in research.

We are looking to expand our dynamic team to further the development and uptake of 3Rs research tools and models. This is a great opportunity to lead and support our collaborations across the life sciences including with academia and industry.

We are currently inviting researchers, with relevant experience and expertise, to apply to join our Development and Impact, Grant, Studentship and Training Fellowship Assessment Panels, from January 2017.

Panel members will help to select the latest 3Rs technologies and approaches by reviewing applications from across a broad spectrum of scientific areas.

Are you seeking new platforms for studying nociception and neuroinflammation which reduce your animal use? If so, researchers from the University of Turin, Italy are seeking partners to help further develop and validate their innovative spinal cord slice platforms (SCSPs).

They are especially keen to engage with (bio)pharmaceutical and academic partners able to provide candidate pain-controlling drugs/molecules to validate SCSPs for preclinical drug development and precision medicine, and to explore the utility of the slice model for investigating other disease models.